DAY 3 & 4: Kangerluarsuk

The next plan is ambitious: a two-day trip with an overnight camp out to remote Kangerluarsuk fjord.

An hour or so boat ride from Narsaq, in good weather, the Kangerluarsuk fjord dead-ends right in the heart of the southern section of the Ilímaussaq intrusion. Early geologists were drawn to the remarkable outcrops there, including some of the most stunning examples of igneous layering on earth. Not only would we get to explore here, but the overnight camping means we’ll have the chance to ‘night collect’.

In mid-July we have a 1-1/2 hour window, starting around 12:30 a.m., when conditions are dark enough to make unencumbered fluorescent collecting with portable UV lights possible. After two days spent hiding from the sun, sweating under the barbeque grill covers, with bruised knees, the thought of being able to ‘lamp’ the ground at will is exhilarating. It will also quite likely be the first time it has ever been done at Kangerluarsuk. I can’t wait.

Howie spent the night thinking about the rocks he failed to recover at Tunulliarfik, and decides he’ll forego our extended Kangerluarsuk excursion, and instead ask Peter to return him to nearby Tunulliarfik, after dropping Mark and I off. Peter’s son, Ulrik, will stay with us. We have a tent just large enough for three and camping gear.

The day dawns gray, and still. We get an early start and head out into the channel to meet the fjord. We reach it in a half hour’s motoring, turn left, and proceed up into alien looking territory. The water is flat like glass. It's quiet.

A few seabirds hover along shore, but like the rest of Greenland we’ve seen, not a tree or even a shrub. Out here be icebergs, rock and water. Ours is the only boat entering Kangerluarsuk this day.

I’d studied the geological maps of the area carefully during the winter months preceding the trip, and knew that toward the head of the fjord, to which we were now racing towards across flat water, there would be tremendous cliffs of layered—just like a layer cake—peralkaline igneous rock off to our right: the Kringlerne. And sure enough, like a dream it starts to appear. First, the now familiar gray color of the intrusion, with some rusty-orange staining in parts, and just beyond, the layered sections of the Kringlerne.

These are the famed kakortokites: red, white, and black layers repeated at least 29 times; stratigraphically the bottom of the intrusion. The products of an evolved magma, they are enriched in ‘incompatible’ elements. The red layers are colored by eudialyte, an unusual zirconium-bearing silicate, and a ‘signature’ mineral for this class of intrusion. In most igneous rocks Zr is locked in the mineral zircon, but here, and in similar peralkaline intrusions such as are found on the Kola Peninsula of Russia, and Mont Saint-Hilaire in Quebec, Zr and a variety of rare-earth elements form eudialyte. So much eudialyte in fact that mining permits were granted in hopes of finding commercial use for these immense outcrops. Fortunately for the beauty of the area this has so far proven unfeasible.

We do not put ashore here—no significant fluorescent mineral occurrences—but the formations are awesome to see. And, like all of Greenland we've seen so far, much bigger in person than photographs had conveyed.

On our left, steep cliffs of mixed sedimentary and volcanic rocks—the older basement rocks that the 1.2 billion year old Ilímaussaq intrusion intruded into, rise up several hundred meters.

Looking straight ahead, we see the end of the fjord—a gray beach and low-lying area, with some darker bluffs to the right, and some rounded gray hills to the left. About dead center we see a small brook spilling over some rocks, making its way down to the head of Kangerluarsuk. This must be the Lille elv. Towering over the scene, in the right distance, was ‘The Comb’. And all around us the water is mirror-smooth; the sky gray.

We come ashore by some large boulders to the right of the beach area, and portage the gear up to a camp spot nearby.

We'll choose a flat patch just above the large boulders at shore. The tent is set up, but not without some debate over how best to do so. As we are building it, the wind starts to pick up, and we must steady the tent’s base and tent pegs with some ever handy rocks.

Mosquitoes and black flies at Kangerluarsuk are dense. Like those encountered the day before, they don’t bite much, but are adept at finding clumsy humans and getting swallowed whole. Worse, they can be easily inhaled (by me), and this results in loud coughing and hacking for at least a minute or two. Mark and Ulrik sport olive-green mosquito hats, with small mesh screens that came down over their faces. They claim they are as annoying as the bugs, but I’m not so sure. Yes, there are a lot of mosquitoes here. And a lot of rocks to explore.

Among other things, we are in search of a very tenebrescent sodalite Peter found the year before. Mark calls this “checkers” sodalite, and Peter takes some pains to carefully explain to him now in English, and to his son Ulrik in Danish, exactly where this material can be found. And, as usual, it is all uphill.

We begin climbing scree below the dark bluffs at right, and make our way up the loose blocks and boulders. After an hour’s struggle, we come to the base of the cliff face, and I sit down for a rest. Ulrik goes off farther inland, towards another line of hills, and Mark traverses left towards more vertical terrain. Here I find some nice sodalite, but not “checkers”, and notice many black crystals of the sodium-iron amphibole arfvedsonite. Some of these are exceptionally large; 10-15 cm long, and several cm across.

Ulrik returns and asks where Mark has gone. I point up left and express no interest in following; I am already tired, have found little of note, and am quite happy to save my energy for the much anticipated night collecting on the flat beach area planned for late tonight.

Soon they are both well out of sight. After a nice rest I get up and explore what lies to the left.

Stepping out onto the edge of a cliff section that faces the fjord, I inspect the rock. Embedded here in one section of wall are some phenomenal aegirine and arfvedsonite crystals in pegmatitic sizes: 20-40 cm long, several cm thick, they are arranged in star-like sprays.

I take a few photographs, but no samples (they don’t glow), and continue my low traverse back down towards camp. Above, I can hear and occasionally see Mark and Ulrik as they make a much higher traverse, across the brow of this dark hill. I continue down among the boulders and around to the extreme left side of the hill.

Old maps suggest there was an area of beryllium mineralization just to the right of the Lille elv, not far from Kangerluarsuk’s shore, and possibly against the left side of this very hill. I make my way there. Scouring the talus, lots of telltale white rock appears, but there's not much in it other than ordinary alkali feldspar. Finally, one grapefruit-sized chunk looks to me like chkalovite—the most abundant beryllium mineral at Ilímaussaq and frequent associate of tugtupite. A few taps with a hammer confirm this, revealing some lovely patches of bright pink tugtupite as well. Soon I hear voices. Out from behind some rocks appears Ulrik and Mark. They have completed a high traverse of the dark hill above but found nothing of note.

I look for a few minutes longer among the white rock, but do not see any other minerals of interest. Reluctantly, I agree to move on, across the nearby stream, and out onto the flat gray plain that stretches to the water beyond. Mark said he'd found superb green sodalite here the previous year and more might still be found. We cross the stream, the Lille elv. Farther inland it cascades down some rock ledges in miniature waterfalls, but here where we cross it is shallow, only 10-20 cm deep and a few meters across. The scene inland is idyllic; looking out across the flat gray plain surreal. This is a strangely enchanted place. No wonder it has long attracted visitors.

Scattered among the gravel and cobbles, looking like burnt tree stumps, are some eroded pillars of more resistant naujaite. They appear to be outcrops that weathered in-place, and the diminutive Lille elv possibly responsible for some of the flatness of the landscape near shore. I take some stereo photographs in hopes of capturing some of the otherworldliness of the area.

The mosquitoes and black flies manage to follow us from the dark hill across the Lille elv’s delta to the gray plain we are now on, and here, some eight hours later, they are still making themselves a nuisance. Mark begins to recognize landmarks and announces we are near the green sodalite he'd found the year before. Taking a rest, I sit in the sand, eating flies, and soon discover a small chip of tugtupite. Then another. And another.

Within a few minutes I've dug a sizable hole in the gravel and have found several decent hand specimens and a bunch more chips.

Over the next few hours we explore this section of the plain carefully and find several meter-wide ‘tugtupite halos’—areas where tugtupite and associated minerals can be found. It seems the rocks have all weathered in-place and this might reflect an original outcrop of beryllium mineralization (it was on the other side of the Lille elv however; so much for my map). Outside of these ‘haloes’ there seems to be little of note.

On a perimeter walk, I spot some dark brown rocks piled atop a large boulder and stop to inspect. It is a cache of freshly broken green sodalite specimens; the fine-grained, radioactive matrix deep chocolate brown.

We dig all afternoon and make good use of our barbeque grill covers. By about 8:00 p.m. hunger overtakes us. We halt collecting, leave our lamps and hammers where they are, and hike out back across the plain towards camp on the far side of the stream, near the fjord's shoreline. We will be Kangerluarsuk’s only dinner guests this night.

Just across the stream, on our way back, Ulrik spies an odd jumble of rocks in some reeds and stops cold. We ask what his interest in the rock pile was. He tells us it may be an ancient Inuit grave marker. He has seen them before, and this one looks exactly like the others, he tells us. A vision of past owners of Kangerluarsuk: what an ideal location this must have been for ancient inhabitants; fresh water trickling down from the Lille elv, the blue Kangerluarsuk fjord stretching out beyond. Now, only this grave and three odd fluorescent mineral collectors are here.

Among the marsh reeds Mark spots some driftwood. The only firewood available out here is what may have fallen off a passing ship. There are no trees. It's soon hauled back. We hit camp and Mark prepares a roaring fire, much to his satisfaction.

Ulrik performs as chef, and several cans of franks and beans are heated. Tonight we'll dine al fresco. And it is good.

As relative darkness increases, and the hour grows late, it gets colder. The wind picks up. The fire helps take the edge off the night air. By around midnight, it is getting near dark enough for us to make our way back across the flats to the area worked in daylight for some UV night collecting.

It is still light enough at 12:30 a.m. to easily find our way, and soon we're back in our respective prospecting holes and ready with our gear. I switch on my clumsy UV lamp. Nothing. I try it again. Nothing. It is finally getting nicely dark.. time is passing. I jiggle the wires to the heavy 12-volt battery, and presto—the lamp comes on. Phew. That was close. No repair shops out here. But less than a minute later it is out again. More jiggling. No luck. Now, in the black of night, I need a flashlight to see what has gone wrong. It was time to exploit the dark; and I was one with it.

Ulrik appears, with flashlight, and suggests I try his cable. He has another UV light of the same make that failed for other reasons (among other things, it has a blown fuse). I stick my fuse in his cord, plug it into my lamp, and it works! Great. Only a few minutes wasted, I start lamping the ground.. and quickly find several of the red and gold glowing tugtupite-and-polylithionite combination specimens that are a highlight of Kangerluarsuk.

And then, in an instant my temperamental UV light goes out yet again. Curses. Fuse blown.

Mark ambles over to see what the fuss is. Ever helpful, he ignores complaints about no Radio Shack being open at that hour and soon fashions a “bypass”: a sliver of foil from his cigarette pack. More lamping—and more finds. And then, yet again, no light. What now? Close inspection discloses a second fuse—hidden inside the fabric battery case—has blown. I fashion another foil ‘bypass’ for it, reassemble things, and the intermittent light comes back on. I promise myself I’ll report back to the maker how badly his light performed outdoors.

Now it is well and truly dark. Over the better part of the next hour the lamp flickers on and off, but at least there are no fuses left to blow, and in the wavering ultraviolet I find a range of fascinating fluorescent specimens: ‘eyes’ of green-fluorescing chkalovite rimmed in red-fluorescing tugtupite; the red-and-gold fluorescent tugtupite and polylithionite combination; masses of bright orange-fluorescing sodalite with bright green filigree; complex samples glowing in pastel blues, pinks, and greens. Wonderful rocks.

This is one of the finest night collecting trips of my life. What a magical location.

By now it's after 2:00 a.m., and the sun is starting to come up again. Mark and I make one last perimeter search to try and spot any other fluorescent ‘halos’ before it is too bright, so that in daylight tomorrow we can return and work them carefully.

We find a few interesting spots farther along the beach, and mark them with fluorescent orange tape, but the sun soon grows too bright for lamp work, and we return to our main site to re-group. There we find Ulrik, peacefully asleep in a depression in the rocks. We wake him up and together make our way back to camp across the stream, leaving our finds and gear behind.

We haven’t paid much mind to it, but the wind that caught our attention earlier this afternoon has steadily increased during the night to near gale force. We return in the wind and find our tent utterly flattened. The winds have ripped out the stakes, broken the main support poles, and generally sent things flying flat against the ground.

Not much to do but each grab sleeping bags and seek out a safe spot to weather the rest of the ‘night’. Actually, during dinner this possibility crossed my mind.. and I’d already selected a huge boulder in the lee of the wind that not only had flat ground beneath, but looked out over a supernatural view of the Kringlerne and Kangerluarsuk fjord. I spread out and jump in and snap two last photos of the day.

It is now 3:11 a.m. in the morning. What a day this has been. Luminous rewards from a magical landscape.

A Good Morning
I awake to bright sunshine and the sound of a motorboat. Odd. How could that be? Peter was not expected to return for us until late this afternoon, and we are in so remote a place it's very unlikely anyone else would arrive.

I stick my head out. It is Peter. During the night his wife has convinced him that we might be in trouble—the winds have been quite strong indeed, and he’s come out first thing this morning to check up on us. Ulrik and Mark are already packing the remains of our camp when I crawl out for a quick breakfast snack. The brisk winds have blown the skies clear. The view, electric.

It is decided that we’ll return with Peter, rather than waste a trip’s worth of his gas. We’ve already done well collecting here and, in any case, the chance for a hot shower was hard to ignore. We hike back across the plain to our collecting sites and gather up our gear and specimen caches. Peter moves the boat close in to the beach, near our collecting site, and helps us haul everything aboard. Soon we are speeding off down the fjord, heading for Narsaq, passing the Kringlerne on our left as we go. What a trip: a trip within a trip.

Back in Narsaq, later that afternoon, we swap stories with Howie. He’d followed Peter closely yesterday, returning to Tunulliarfik to seek his ‘revenge’, with great success. He's found some excellent, large, brightly fluorescent samples in the scree below the ledge we'd worked earlier. He is now able to unceremoniously dump his ‘aquarium gravel’ outside the Rock Hut with a smile.

The rest of the day was spent at leisure. I think I may have blacked out.

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